Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #423 from August 7, after several days of similarly challenging puzzles, Connections Companion has made leaps and bounds, rating this puzzle 3.3 out of 5 for difficulty.

Every day, we update our Connections clues and hints. And if the hints aren't enough, you can see all four answers along with the category title and related words. In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I've included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle 422.

Connection #423 has spoilers. Only those who want to know the answer to today's connection should read it.

Alternatively, see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, Connections' solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words. The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult. Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses.

If you need a hint to solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you only want the answer, scroll down further.

Here's a bigger clue. I would start with the restaurant position, then think about the rays and waves. Then fill in the ones with bits.

Now what is the answer to today's connection in game 423?

Drum roll please.

Today's puzzle always has a satisfying solution, and I'm often surprised at how often the NYT Games crew comes up with green and blue categories.

Yellow was the easy part: jam, pack, ram, etc. ram is a tricky word here because I don't think most people would think it means to pack.

Green was then pretty easy with cook, dishlor, host, and server; I tried to get server, byte, server, and host to work and got caught in a computer trap. It didn't work.

I was concerned about the electromagnetic spectrum from the beginning, but did not think about visible until I got to the last eight letters. It became clear that visible light fit better with microwaves, radio, and x-rays than the last four.

Purple makes sense and feels like something you should get much earlier in the bridle, bite, comedian, and drill. I think these answers are a sign of a good purple.

Are you reading this late in the day? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 2.7 out of 5.

Today's difficulty level of 2.7 was just right.

There was fog instead of dandelions, so I did a quick shot at yellow. In my mind, I described it as cottony. Also, I was imagining a yellow dandelion, not a ball that a child would send flying all over the place. Interchanging the two, I became a cloud, a cotton ball, and a sheep.

Generally, when I see a guinea pig, I immediately think of a subject. So participants, subjects, and volunteers were easy to spot.

Disapproval, hearts, subjects, and protests stuck with me, as I had been taking issue with several categories over the past few days. It helped that three of them were right next to each other in the way the grid fell.

Purple became a fill for memorization, with "bull" horn, "fog" horn, "matter" horn, and "shoe" horn. I like this. As I mentioned, I thought of the famous fog horn Leghorn in Looney Tunes. Go watch the cartoon.